As the population of the country increases so does the demand for land and housing. Many of these demands for land and housing result in people moving to areas that do not have public sewer systems and may have lot sizes too small for septic. Conventional onsite wastewater systems require a large land area, putting a premium cost on real estate in many locations or the soil in the area will not support a conventional system. The increasing price on real estate and the high density of residential and commercial building, make it desirable to reduce the area required for wastewater treatment and still treat the wastewater to acceptable standards. The amount of effluent a system can treat is directly related to the surface area of filter media available to the system and the amount of wastewater that is passed through the available filter media. Most sand, gravel, or synthetic media wastewater treatment systems are dosed intermittently, either a single pass or recirculated, and rely upon a repeat cycle timer and a pump to regulate the frequency and volume of the wastewater applied to the surface of the treatment media. The timers are set with specific on and off time intervals. The off times determine the number of doses over time and the on times determine the dose volume. In all cases, there are distinct dosing and resting periods to prevent overloading the media past the point of failure. Even in cases where drip irrigation tubing is used in treatment systems, very distinct dosing schedules are used. In recirculating sand and gravel filters as well as synthetic packed-bed-filters, repeat cycle timers are the traditional methodology for flow control. Therefore, there is a need for a wastewater treatment system that is compact in area, simple to use, and treats water continuously while maintaining the standards required by law.
In some areas there may not be a suitable depth of native undisturbed soil above a restrictive layer. A restrictive layer is a layer that prevents proper treatment of effluent. This can be a ground water table, bedrock, or soil that is too coarse. Typically, for proper treatment the effluent must have 2-4 feet of vertical separation between the bottom of the disposal component and a restrictive layer. Therefore a need exists for a system or device that properly treats effluent in areas where the restrictive layer is less than 2 feet from the surface of the soil.